- Oh my gosh.
If you don't got a spa, just buy a big-ass wok,
and, you know, get a facial.
When you think of New York,
you think of pizza and bagels.
Well in this episode, we're diving into New York's
delicious Chinese-Latino food scene.
- Tostones, fried rice.
This is the most perfect thing.
- If you took chifas out of Peruvian culture,
Peru would not be the same.
- In New York City,
you can find Chinese-Latino takeout
in every borough.
You ready to drool, Thrillist?
You're watching "Barrio USA,"
a Thrillist original series.
(upbeat Latin music)
On the avenue of Puerto Rico in Williamsburg,
Caridad China is a great example
of Chinese-Latino food, Boricua style.
Who better to introduce me
to Chinese-Latino takeout than my friend,
and fellow Latino native New Yorker, Lee Chin.
- Personally being Puerto Rican and
being Chinese, this says more to me about
being a New Yorker growing up with
my cultural specifics than anything else.
Just so you know how much I frequent
these kind of restaurants,
this is my usual Chinese food dining experience.
Here we have tostones.
Classic fried rice, chicken mofongo,
chicken and broccoli, sesame chicken.
Now this is the most perfect thing...
to ever, like, to ever thing.
The best thing to ever thing.
Fried chicken.
Honestly?
Honestly, time-out.
Just give me a little bit of time.
- [Kat] Oh, OK!
- There's a Chinese cook, a Latino waiter,
and everyone's interacting, and the Asian guy
speaks Spanish better than I do,
what the (beep)?
- [Kat] Chef Billy Li invited me into his kitchen
to get the story behind his cooking.
We got plantains here.
Billy is so angry.
We're frying the plantains.
OK, we done frying the plantains.
He got anger issues.
Oh, ah!
Ever seen someone plate a bistec like that before?
Yes, probably millions of times.
OK, so he's not telling us the ingredients,
but I got you.
OK, Billy (foreign language)
This looks so good.
This comes out of Boricua people
embracing different cultures, you come together,
you come to New York, and bam!
You get a delicious plate.
- It unifies, this is representation.
- We've tasted Puerto Rican-Chinese food,
but I saved a little room
for my all-time favorite
Latino-Asian cuisine, Chifa.
Growing up, my dad's chifa dishes
were my favorite to eat.
- If you're a Peruvian,
you say, "Let's have some chifa,"
I mean, your heart just warms up.
- Chifa is what we Peruvians call
our version of Chinese food.
It's a unique blend of Cantonese cooking style
with Peruvian ingredients and tradition.
Where does that word come from?
- It comes from "to eat rice,"
which in Cantonese would be "chi fan,"
and again, I'm speaking Cantonese with a Spanish accent.
(laughs)
- The first chifa restaurants opened in Peru
a century ago, and with migration,
they made their way here, to New York City.
We're at Chifa restaurant here
in Jackson Heights, Queens.
Fabiana, thank you so much for meeting up with me.
I'm really excited because I feel like you,
as a community historian, you're the perfect person
to walk me through all of these dishes.
Where should we start?
'Cause I'm very hungry.
(laughs)
- Well I think we should start
with the one that's right in front of you.
So that's lomo saltado.
Lomo saltado is the most popular dish
that you're going to find in any chifa restaurant,
or in any Peruvian restaurant for that matter.
You use sirloin tips, and you mix it
with onions and potatoes.
Peru has hundreds of thousands of
different types of potatoes.
The oldest potatoes in the world
have been found in Peru.
So, French fries make it into the lomo saltada dish.
- This was, like, the number one plate
that my dad would cook at home.
But I had no idea that this plate
actually had Chinese roots to it.
- It's cooked on a wok.
A wok is not originally from Peru.
You will also use soy sauce,
which originally is not from Peru either.
- So I grew up putting soy sauce on everything,
and just thinking, like, well that's just Peruvian.
(laughs)
Soy sauce, and how do we call soy sauce?
- Sillao. - Sillao!
What's going on over here?
- This is a ceviche mixto.
In this case you have calamari,
and you have shrimp.
We have some cancha.
- Cancha.
Cancha's my favorite.
- Look at the size of those corn kernels.
- Oh yeah.
- I mean you don't get corn kernels that
big here in the US.
- [Kat] What do we have here?
- [Fabiana] This is arroz chaufa.
- [Kat] So it's fried rice?
- They've put a little bit of everything.
There's chicken, there's char siu,
which is roast pork.
- I actually cooked this dish,
and I cooked this dish with the chef in the back.
- Here? - Oh I did.
- Get out.
- I was putting in work in the back.
(exclaims)
Well that looks cooked to me.
Do it again?
- [Chef] No, no, no, no. - No, no, no, no.
Ah this is hot.
I pissed off the chef.
Ah!
(foreign language)
Thank you, thank you, gracias.
Oh!
Our last and final dish.
We have arroz chaufa, oh.
What was it like for you, growing up in Peru?
- I could say we were really well fed.
We have great food.
(laughs)
- [Kat] You had great food, that's for sure!
- And I would say also, that if you took chifas
out of Peruvian culture,
Peru would not be the same.
The fact that I could go into a restaurant
and speak Spanish to people who appear to be Chinese,
there was just like a homecoming.
It's the ultimate comfort food.
- This food, it's almost a security blanket,
because if I can bring you to a restaurant
that's like this, and say,
"Oh look, this is what I eat,"
and you go, "Oh, me too!"
That can squash so many differences
we may think we have.
If we sit down at a table and you're like, "Oh, me too,"
"oh, me too," "oh, we have this too,"
"oh, my mom this."
- Chinese-Latino cuisines are equally
Latino as they are Asian, so now you know
just where to go to try it for yourself.
Till next time, Thrillist,
'cause I gotta finish eating.
(upbeat Latin music)
- [Fabiana] You don't like the shrimp?
I'm gonna eat shrimp.
- [Kat] No. You wanna hear something really bad?
- [Fabiana] What?
- [Kat] I don't like ceviche.
- [Fabiana] You know, you're just like my husband.
I can't do octopus either, it's scary.
- [Kat] Can you do calamari?
- [Fabiana] No.
- [Kat] So we're just not gonna touch this?
- We're not gonna touch it,
these guys are gonna touch it.
(laughs)